It’s not the first time the president has cited his former opponent in an effort to decry the investigation into his campaign’s ties to Russia. Just last month, Trump claimed he was the subject of disproportionate scrutiny compared to his election foe.

Why is that Hillary Clintons family and Dems dealings with Russia are not looked at, but my non-dealings are?

The president was referring to emails that showed former acting Democratic National Committee chair Donna Brazile had provided questions to the Hillary Clinton campaign in advance of a town hall and debate hosted by CNN during the Democratic primary.

But the emails that revealed Trump Jr. took the June 9, 2016, meeting at Trump Tower with Natalia Veselnitskaya, a lawyer with alleged ties to the Kremlin and its spy agency, has sparked yet another firestorm for the Trump administration.

Trump Jr., campaign chief Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and top White House adviser, also attended the meeting, which was brokered by Robert Goldstone, a music publicist who had previously helped ink a business deal between President Trump and a Russian oligarch close to Vladimir Putin.

In his initial email to Trump Jr., Goldstone claimed a “Russian government lawyer” had “very high level and sensitive information” that was part of the Russian government’s support for the elder Trump’s candidacy.

“Thanks Rob, I appreciate that,” Trump Jr. replied. “If it’s what you say I love it, especially later in the summer.”

Trump Jr. posted the emails on his Twitter feed Tuesday morning after the New York Times had informed him they were set to publish them. Critics have pointed to the emails as proof that the Trump campaign tried to collude with the Kremlin.

“My son is a wonderful young man,” Trump said of Donald Trump Jr., 39. “He took a meeting with a Russian lawyer, not a government lawyer, but a Russian lawyer. It was a short meeting. It was a meeting that went very, very quickly — very fast — two of the people in the room, one of them left almost immediately and the other was not really focused on the meeting. I do think this from a practical standpoint, most people would have taken that meeting.

“It’s called opposition research or even research into your opponent,” the president added.

On Twitter Sunday, Trump thanked Michael Caputo, a former Trump campaign adviser, who told CNN last week that he “never once” heard anyone on the Trump team discuss Russian attempts to meddle in the election.

“Thank you to former campaign adviser Michael Caputo for saying so powerfully that there was no Russian collusion in our winning campaign,” Trump tweeted.

Thank you to former campaign adviser Michael Caputo for saying so powerfully that there was no Russian collusion in our winning campaign.

“No one ever breathed the word ‘Russia’ to me,” Caputo said in the interview, which aired Friday. “We were so busy just trying to keep up with the sun rising and setting on that campaign that I can’t imagine anyone had the time, nor the wherewithal to go out there and even do something like this.”